Greece is really scraping the barrel and giving Germany even fewer reasons to bail them out from their debt crisis as the Deputy Prime Minister Theodoros Pangalos mentioned Nazi gold theft in a BBC interview last night.

Deputy prime minister Theodoros Pangalos said the largest EU nation had no right to criticise Greece’s finances, especially when the World War II occupation had wrecked its economy and slaughtered thousands. He added that Athens had never received compensation for the economic impact of the Nazi occupation during World War Two.

Reuters: “They took away the Greek gold that was at the Bank of Greece, they took away the Greek money and they never gave it back. This is an issue that has to be faced sometime in the future,” he said.

“I don’t say they have to give back the money necessarily but they have at least to say ‘thanks’,” he said. “And they shouldn’t complain so much about stealing and not being very specific about economic dealings.”

He also said that Italy did more than Greece to mask the state of its finances to secure euro zone entry.

None of which is likely to help Greece out of its current predicament.